AFGHANISTAN

Afganistan:
Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan February 2001
(C1301)
This report documents two massacres
committed by Taliban forces in the central highlands of Afghanistan, in
January 2001and May 2000. In both cases the victims were primarily
Hazaras, a Shia Muslim ethnic group that has been the target of previous
massacres and other serious human rights violations by Taliban forces.
These massacres took place in the context of the six-year war between the Taliban and parties now
grouped in the United National Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan
(the “United Front”), in which international human rights and humanitarian
law have been repeatedly violated by the warring factions. Ethnic and religious
minorities, and the Hazaras in particular, have been especially vulnerable
in areas of conflict, and Taliban forces have committed large-scale abuses
against Hazara civilians with impunity. In this report Human Rights Watch
calls upon the United Nations to investigate both massacres and to systematically
monitor human rights and humanitarian law violations by all parties to
Afghanistan’s civil war.
(C1301), 02/01, 12pp, $3.00
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Afghanistan: The
Massacre in Mazar-I SharifOn August 8, 1998, Taliban militia forces captured the city of Mazar-i
Sharif in northwest Afghanistan, the only major city controlled by the
United Front, the coalition of forces opposed to the Taliban. The fall
of Mazar was part of a successful offensive that gave the Taliban control
of almost every major city and important significant territory in northern
and central Afghanistan. Within the first few hours of seizing control
of the city, Taliban troops killed scores of civilians in indiscriminate
attacks, shooting noncombatants and suspected combatants alike in residential
areas, city street sand markets. Witnesses described it as a "killing frenzy"
as the advancing forces shot at "anything that moved." Retreating opposition
forces may also have engaged in indiscriminate shooting as they fled the
city. Human Rights Watch believes that at least hundreds of civilians were
among those killed as the panicked population of Mazar-i Sharif tried to
evade the gunfire or escape the city.
(C1007) 11/98, 17pp., $3.00
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THE FORGOTTEN WAR
Human Rights Abuses and Violations of the
Laws of War Since the Soviet Withdrawal

For the last decade, Afghanistan has been the scene of some of the most
serious human rights violations on record. About one half of the country's
prewar population are either refugees, internally displaced, or dead. Most
of the abuses were at one time attributable to the Afghan government and
its Soviet advisers. Since the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1989,
the intense fighting of the earlier years of the war has lessened in much
of the Afghan countryside, but military operations by all parties still
cause extensive civilian casualties in contested regions. Certain mujahidin
commanders, for example, continue to launch poorly aimed rockets against
Kabul and other cities. The Pakistani ISI and the CIA have encouraged these
attacks and have supplied weapons to commanders who undertake them. In
addition, all parties to the conflict rely on the widespread use of landmines
without taking precautions to ensure that civilians are warned of the mine
fields. To date, despite accords signed in 1988 in Geneva designed to end
the war, fighting continues and civilian casualties mount.
(810) 2/91, 168 pp., ISBN 0-929692-81-0, $15.00/£12.95
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